320 | Solo: Complexity and the Universe

Our universe started out looking very simple: hot, dense, smooth, rapidly expanding. According to our best current model, it will end up looking simple once again: cold, dark, empty. It's in between -- now, roughly speaking -- that things look complex. I have been working to understand the stages by which complexity comes into existence, thrives, and eventually disappears. Without going into technical details, in this solo episode I give an overview of the general picture and the clues we are looking at to better understand the process of complexogenesis.

Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/06/30/320-solo-complexity-and-the-universe/

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

The Santa Fe Institute has recently published a four-volume set of classic papers on complexity. David Krakauer provided a comprehensive introduction that has been published as a standalone book.

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322 | Philip Pettit on Language, Agency, Politics, and Freedom

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321 | David Tong on Open Questions in Quantum Field Theory

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AMA | July 2025

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318 | Edward Miguel on the Developing Practice of Development Economics

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Economics is seeing an upsurge in the importance of controlled, reproducible empirical studies. One area where this has had a great impact is on development economics, which studies the economies of l...

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317 | Nicole Rust on Why Neuroscience Hasn't Solved Brain Disorders

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The human brain is extremely complicated, but decades of careful neuroscientific research have revealed quite a bit about how it works, including how certain genes affect particular brain behaviors. N...

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AMA | June 2025

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Welcome to the June 2025 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreo...

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